Happy ending
by AryYuna
Summary: He'd promised it many times, and he'd always failed. But this time Sam had made sure he'd keep the promise, and in Dean's eyes there wasn't only pain, while he turned his back to the flames enveloping his brother's body: there was anger, and fear, and despair. And a plan. Because Sam and Dean were one, and going on without his brother was unthinkable. Possibly triggery.


_I know there's not gonna be a real happy ending with the brothers marrying two beautiful girls and building a family; my happy ending is about Sam and Dean dying together: I couldn't accept one of them staying alive and having to move on with his life alone. He – and my heart – wouldn't survive._

_But this is not a happy period, for me, so my mind decided to torture me with this story._

_Yes, it is a deathfic, but I promise you'll like it even if you normally hate deathfics: after all, _I_ wrote it; and I usually avoid deathfics like the plague._

_The thing you'll hate the most, probably, is that I mentioned Bloodlines. I know that episode shouldn't exist… but you always have to find the good even among the bad, right?_

**Disclaimer:**_ unfortunately, SPN doesn't belong to me. If it did… well, I would meet Jensen Ackles e Jared Padalecki, which would be veeeery good, and there would be someone reminding the authors about _canon_…_

_I apologize for my English; it's not my first language and I don't have a beta-reader. If you find any mistakes, please let me know and I'll see to fix them._

_You can find this story in Italian here: __efpfanficDOTnetSLASHviewstoryDOTphp?sid=2993853_

* * *

**Happy ending**

Dean knew it would happen, sooner or later; you can't spend your life hunting monsters and expect you'll live till your hair is white and you have grandchildren to tell fairytales to. He was ready, had been for years, to die with a gun in his hand, a werewolf's claws tearing his flesh, a demon's hold around his throat, a vampire's fangs in his neck.

Dean knew it was inevitable, that every hunt could be the last.

He just… didn't expect it to happen like this.

o-o-o-o

_Normal people only die once; but Winchesters weren't normal people._

Dean wasn't five yet when he'd experienced the pain of loss for the first time, and it was something he'd never really gotten over: after all, how can you recover from the loss of your security, your innocence, your normalcy? He'd learned to live with it, to take a step at a time towards a future that had lost its contours; but something in him had died, that night; the little boy he'd never be again – not for real – had died the 2nd of November of the year 1983.

Twenty-one years later he'd felt that pain again, this time made even bigger by the guilt – _because he knew it was supposed to be him, he deserved it_ – and inadequacy. The little boy had died long ago, but that day the young man had died too. Taking his first step towards the adult man had been hard, but it's from the first step that everything starts.

The adult man had died only a year later. He'd lost the chance of a normal life, he's lost his guide and protection in his hunter life… but now he'd lost his _reason_ to live, and that erased every chance.

He'd made a deal with a demon, because – what more was to lose? He had nothing left. There were only benefits. The death of his own body had been, among all the others, the less painful one; the hellhounds' fangs and claws tore his flesh, the torture rack has shattered his soul… but the alternative still felt worse, even after coming back to Earth, starting the Apocalypse, fighting – uselessly – to stop it. When Sam had jumped in the cage with Lucifer and Michael, a part of Dean had jumped with him, and had only come back to life when his brother had.

_Codependence_, Doctor Fuller had called it. _Brothers_, Dean thought watching Sam breathing while Zeke – _Gadreel_ – covertly healed the younger man from the inside, and it was the most beautiful sight ever. Sam would hate him, list all his big brother's shortcomings, and failures, and faults, but Dean couldn't regret what he'd done; not when Sam _breathed_.

They'd reconciled, fought side by side, and against each other, and again together in that battle they'd found themselves involved with – a little by chance, a little by choice.

_Together_. Because Sam and Dean were one and could never be separated.

Until Sam had been stabbed with a wendigo's claw before the flare gun could burn it to death, and Dean, too far to stop it, had only been able to yell his brother's name and run to gather his body crumpling to the ground.

"This time is gonna be the last," the kid made him promise, and Dean firmly shook his head, but Sam repeated that one sentence over and over, his brother's arms cradling his gigantic body as if he were a little boy. The older Winchester kept shaking his head, his eyes in Sam's, his mind already looking for a way to cancel that scene.

"It's gonna be okay, Dean," Sam whispered. "This time is gonna be the last."

And there was a smile below his glazing eyes, and it was the most _indecent_ thing Dean had ever seen. It was an offence to justice, to life.

Like so many years before, Dean had stayed there, kneeling in the mud, holding his brother's lifeless body; tears were finally pouring from his eyes, 'cause his mind knew it wouldn't give up, but the pain was real and present.

After hours, probably, the hunter lifted the too big body of his little brother on his back and slowly walked to the Impala; he drove to the bunker, where he washed blood and mud from the wound, changed clothes to them both, drank a whole bottle of whiskey and passed out on his brother's bedroom floor.

The next day he called Castiel and, when the angel offered his condolences but was unable to help in a more concrete way, he hung up and tried to call Crowley; the disgraced demon didn't have the power anymore to make a deal, though, and was just as useless. Dean drove to a crossroad and performed the summoning ritual, but got no answer. Back to the bunker, he dug through the Men of Letter's library and on the internet; met a witch that tried then to con him and killed her; recited spells and mixed potions, prayed angels and pagan gods, cried and drank until he passed out.

_This time is gonna be the last_. Sam hadn't asked him; Sam had _told_ him. Because he knew it would be the last.

Exhausted and devastated, Dean dragged three heavy fuel cans to the bunker and doused the floors. He said goodbye for the last time to Sam and gave him a hunter's funeral among the Men of Letter's vast knowledge, because he was a geek and he would've liked it.

Dean drove for ten hours with no breaks to eat or sleep and got to Chicago while the sun was setting. He parked the Impala in front of Ennis' place and walked to the address he remembered; inside the club, he spotted the person – the _creature_ – he was looking for, lured it on the back alley, provoked it, and attacked it.

And let it win.

The djinn dragged him to its lair, muttering disdainfully about his pathetic attempt to fight it; it then tied him to a pole in a damp room. When the creature's hand descended on the hunter's forehead, Dean saw his mother, his father and Sam.

He would die in a grey building's basement in Chicago, dreaming about an open road, his brother on his side, the safe confines of Impala around them. He had no reason to pull himself out of the dream: he'd fought enough for the other people and had nobody to do it for.

o-o-o-o

When the djinn had consumed him completely, his body was thrown somewhere and forgotten, but his soul could join his brother again in the Heaven they shared. Forever.

* * *

_I cried while I was writing it. What the hell, I gotta stop writing fanfictions in the middle of the night after spending the entire afternoon listening to sad music and thinking about sad things._

_This is the _sappiest_ thing I've ever written. I'm not sure why – I didn't plan for it to be like this, but it just… happened._

_Hope you like it. I think I could really send a laxative-flavoured cake to Carver if he dares leaving Dean alone to suffer without a chance of a happy ending with his brother. Really._


End file.
